Memories of July 4th Past
Today is my 63rd
Fourth of July, which means I’ve been around more than one-fourth of the 237
years this country has been in existence. Of course, I don’t remember much
about the first few celebrations. But somewhere in my earlier childhood I
became aware that there were two times a year, once in the summer and again
just after Christmas, when there were fireworks. (Several years later I would
learn that the two occasions were the Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve.)
Back in the 1950s when I
was a child, there were fewer city-wide fireworks shows and more of the small
scale, do-it-yourself fireworks displays. My dad’s fireworks of choice were
sparklers, firecrackers, bottle rockets, and Roman candles. He always got
sparklers for my brother and me, but he handled the others himself to keep us
safe. I didn’t even really like the sparklers because the sparks burned my
hands. The bottle rockets and Roman candles produced bright, pretty lights in
the night sky so we enjoyed seeing them. I also wasn’t too fond of the
firecrackers because they were so loud, louder even than my brother’s cap
pistols, and those were loud enough.
Sometimes Daddy put away some of the firecrackers for a more opportune
time which he wanted to play a prank on one of his friends.
During the ‘50s, my home
town of Lampasas learned just how dangerous fireworks could be when a large
fireworks stand located inside the city limits on the main street through town
blew up, killing the man who worked there. Our house was only about six blocks
away, and we heard the explosion. Daddy knew the man who was killed.
The first big fireworks
show I ever saw was at Fort Hood in the 1960s. We had friends from church who
had access to Fort Hood, as the father of that family was stationed there. Our
family went to that show as their guests, and it was impressive, both the
elaborate fireworks themselves and the patriotic music played by a military
band.
In the early ‘80s when I
lived in Austin, I watched a massive fireworks display over Lake Austin,
accompanied by patriotic music from the Austin Symphony. One summer I watched a
fireworks display from my sister DJ’s apartment on North Collins when the
Rangers still played in the old Arlington Stadium. And then there was the year
when I was living in a second floor apartment over on Lamar in North Arlington.
From my front porch I could look to the right and see the fireworks in Downtown
Dallas or to the left to see the fireworks in Fort Worth.
One memorable Fourth of
July was in 1988 when I was traveling with my parents through South Dakota,
Montana, Wyoming and on into Alberta, Canada. We were in Calgary and Banff on
Canada Day (July 1), Canada’s Independence Day, then back into Idaho, Utah, and
Colorado by July 4. As we drove through the mountains that night we could see
periodic fireworks in the little communities we were passing.
The year DJ and I bought
our house, our parents came up for the Fourth of July. It was a cool, rainy
July 4 so we spent most of the day inside watching movies on TV. Another year
not too long after we bought the house, we went to a Fourth of July party at
the home of a friend from church. It was another cool day, and we spent a big
part of the day sitting around a chiminea on the back patio enjoying the smell
of the burning pinon wood.
We spent the Fourth of
July in 2002 sitting in my dad’s room in his nursing home in Lampasas, watching
the fireworks display in New York. My sister went to Sonic and brought daddy a
strawberry sundae, and he ate every bite. That was about the last time he was
alert and able to take part in any kind of family activity or conversation. He
died about 10 days later, on the last day of the annual Spring Ho Festival in
Lampasas.
And so what was our plan
for this year’s Fourth? Nothing fancy. DJ and I went to a movie this afternoon
and saw White House Down, then picked
up drinks and hotdogs from Sonic on the way home. We’ll watch TV and probably
do a little reading tonight. Fort Worth is supposed to have a great fireworks
display, so I’ll try to catch part of that on television, too. Tomorrow we have
plans to attend another movie matinee (Despicable
Me 2) with friends from church, then go out to eat. Not as exciting as some
previous years but still enjoyable and more fitting with my senior citizen-retiree
status. Besides, my recliner is a lot more comfortable than a lot of those
things I used to do. Remember, I’m more than a quarter the age of the entire
country.
